The Ultrabooks that have been released by Acer and Asus are not selling as well as expected, according to a new report from Digitimes. As a result, the two PC makers are only expected to ship 100,000 units each of their Ultrabook models by the end of 2011 due to "unclear market demand."
Intel has been pushing hard for its thin-and-light Ultrabooks design to be adopted by PC makers and even set up a special $300 million fund to help those companies make these notebooks as cheap as possible. But so far the reviews of the Acer and Asus Ultrabooks have been mixed. While the hardware has gotten a lot of attention, some believe that the prices of these Ultrabooks needs to come down some more (the cheapest one is from Acer at $899).
Intel has hopes that notebooks with its Ultrabook design specs will account for as many as 40 percent of all PC sales by the end of 2012. Based on these early results, that is looking to be a more ambitious goal than first thought. But as with all first generation products there are always going to be issues with both the hardware and the price points.
HP has already announced that it plans to offer up its own Ultrabooks at some point in 2012. When the world"s biggest PC maker tells the world it"s coming out with its own version of Intel"s design concept, it"s likely that more people will stand up and take notice of it.